Chinese grad student believed to be Boston victim

Wednesday

Apr 17, 2013 at 5:40 AMApr 17, 2013 at 8:59 AM

DIDI TANG,Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — She was a food fan, eager for culinary discoveries. In her last microblog update the morning before the Boston Marathon blasts, the Chinese graduate student identified as the attack's third victim posted a photo of ciabatta-like bread chunks and fruit.

In her early 20s, she often shared photos of her home-prepared meals on her Twitter-like Chinese Sina Weibo account — a blueberry-covered waffle one day, spinach sachettini with zucchini on another.

They were almost always served in a shallow, blue-patterned bowl. In September, she showed off her first two-dish meal — stir-fried broccoli and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, often cooked by Chinese students learning how to live on their own abroad.

Chinese officials have said one of their nationals was killed in the attack, but authorities in China and the U.S. have not released a name, in accordance with the wishes of the victim's parents. However, state media and long-time acquaintances have identified the victim as Lu Lingzi from the northeastern city of Shenyang.

An editor of her hometown newspaper, the Shenyang Evening News, said Lu's father had confirmed her death when reporters visited the family. The editor declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to foreign media.

The reports have drawn an outpouring of comments and condolences from friends and strangers, both on Lu's Sina Weibo account — with nearly 20,000 comments as of Wednesday — and on their own. Her former neighbor in Shenyang, Zhang Xinbo, lamented how the news brought home the tragedy of what he had considered a faraway event.

"I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind. Now, she's becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything," he wrote on his own Sina Weibo account. "I think of her loved ones, and I don't know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope."

Many comments reflect a growing awareness that the burgeoning number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years has opened them up to dangers ranging from mundane street crime to terrorist attacks.

"Nearly 12 years after Sept. 11, more and more people have realized terrorists are the global enemy. They not only attack Americans but also Chinese, regardless of nationality and race," the well-known blogger and author Li Chengpeng wrote on his microblog site.

Chinese are the largest contingent of foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities. Last year, nearly 200,000 Chinese were enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education, and Massachusetts had almost 10,000 Chinese students on its college campuses, according to the Institute of International Education.

The detonations near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 170. Another Chinese student, Zhou Danling, also a student from Boston University, was seriously injured but was in stable condition at a local hospital, Chinese authorities said. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a student from Chengdu was among the gravely wounded.

Lu's former high school teacher, Yang Yongkun, told the Shenyang Evening News that Lu had left a deep impression on him.

"This child is particularly smart and simple," the newspaper quoted Yang as saying.

According to Lu's profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn, she was awarded "excellent student" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she graduated last year. It said she held jobs or internships at the Beijing offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consultancy and at Dongxing Securities Co. during her undergraduate years and spent a semester at the University of California Riverside.